Inspired by Fred Hicks, I've established a program which allows retailers to give PDFs to their customers, both of existing products and at the pre-order stage. Technically, it's very easy to set up - as a publisher, you just set up a Dropbox account with yout PDFs in and give the retailer access to it. This has a number of advantages for the publisher:

1. It builds up pre-orders and buzz on forthcoming products and even gives you feedback on your PDFs before the hardcopy is published.2. It creates a level playing field for proactive retailers who really look after your customers, while leaving the uninvolved retailers no worse off.3. It allows you to sell pre-orders with PDFs directly without upsetting retailers, because if they can be bothered, they can do the same thing.4. It reduces the burden of giving out PDFs to customers.

It relies entirely on trust, but let's face it - pirates are no more than two clicks away from complete torrents of your products in any case.

What are your program's terms, or details, or whatever we call them? I am thinking of two spheres of interest.

First, by "give access," do you mean "give" in the sense of free, for the retailer? And then, free from the retailer to the customer? I'm not saying this is bad or good either way, merely trying to get a clear picture of what you're doing.

Also, by "program" I am inferring that this is something you are making available to others rather than solely a thing for your own company. Is that right?

What are your program's terms, or details, or whatever we call them? I am thinking of two spheres of interest.

First, by "give access," do you mean "give" in the sense of free, for the retailer? And then, free from the retailer to the customer? I'm not saying this is bad or good either way, merely trying to get a clear picture of what you're doing.

Also, by "program" I am inferring that this is something you are making available to others rather than solely a thing for your own company. Is that right?

Best, Ron

Quite simply, we give the retailer access to all our PDFs at no charge. The retailer then gives their customers the PDF when the customer buys the print version in whatever way they choose, on a CD, USB stick, or even by email at no extra charge to the customer. Quite simply I set up a Dropbox account, and give the retailers access as they request permission to join the program.

I've been giving PDFs to retail customers on request for a long time. I've abandoned any attempts to charge extra for PDFs on top of the print price, so it's all fairly straightforward.

There is absolutely nothing to stop any publisher doing this, now, though I am discussing some kind of non-commercial central clearing / promotion website with other publishers where retailers can go to see which publishers offer the program and sign up.

We've done this on request, too, and as a special promotion with EndGame Oakland. We've also had queries from print customers asking if they can get a free copy of the pdf, having bought it in a retail store. It is slowly becoming the expectation, I think, and that's not a bad thing.